Resistance (At All Costs)

by Kimberley Strassel

  Having opened an inexcusable counterintelligence probe, the FBI then went on to use inexcusable methods. According to press reports, among these was the deployment of at least one human informant—or rather, a “spy”—against Trump campaign members. J. Edgar Hoover put the dirt he came across on politicians in files, but even he, so far as we know, never sent spies into a political campaign.

  Stefan Halper is an American foreign policy scholar at the University of Cambridge and had likely been on the U.S. intelligence community’s payroll for some time. At some point, according to reports, Halper was tasked with reaching out to Trump officials, under the ruse of discussing foreign policy. He contacted Sam Clovis, the national co-chairman of the Trump campaign, and the two met in late August or early September in Virginia. In September, Halper sent an unsolicited e-mail to Papadopoulos, asking him to London and offering to pay him $3,000 to write a paper on foreign policy issues. Papadopoulos later said that Halper grilled him on Clinton’s hacked e-mails and Russia’s involvement, and that he responded that he knew nothing about that issue.

  But the oddest Halper interaction involves Page, and it highlights the trouble with the FBI’s origin story. The FBI officially launched its probe on July 31, 2016, just a few days after it says it received its information from Downer. And it still claims Papadopoulos was the reason for its probe. But we know that Halper met Page in mid-July—weeks before the FBI launched its probe. And the invitation Page received to the event where he met Halper came even earlier—at the end of May or early June. Page had been invited to a symposium at Cambridge, hosted by the Centre for Research in the Arts, Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH). The invitation came from the official organizer of the symposium, an American academic named Steven Schrage, but the event was supported by Halper’s department. Halper not only talked to Page at that event, but would continue talking to him into 2017.

  Halper’s very early outreach to Page is curious for another reason. Halper also has ties that lead back to Fusion. One of the participants in the July symposium Page attended was Sir Richard Dearlove, a Cambridge alumnus and the former chief of MI6. Dearlove and Halper know each other well, having run together the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar, an academic forum for researchers and one-time practitioners of spycraft. And, of course, Dearlove had been Steele’s boss. Was Steele or Fusion using connections to conduct their own freelance spying or entrapment? That remains an open question.

  * * *

  What FBI rules was Halper operating under while he was interacting with Trump officials? Halper was supposed to be gathering information about a very specific topic: Russia. Did he talk about broader issues? If he was wearing a wire, did he turn it off during those discussions? If Halper reported back to the FBI any details of the Trump team’s campaign strategy, the federal government would stand accused of snooping on the political activities of a candidate.

  We already know the FBI failed to exert quality control over other sources, with dire consequences. Steele, as an official source, was subject to specific FBI regulations. Among these was the requirement that he keep confidential the information he shared with the FBI. Instead, he and Simpson in September 2016 began briefing significant numbers of the media about the dossier.

  Those meetings helped publicly launch the Trump-Russia collusion narrative in the run-up to Election Day. On September 23, Michael Isikoff of Yahoo! News ran a story titled “U.S. Intel Officials Probe Ties Between Trump Adviser and Kremlin.” The story explained that “U.S.” officials had “received intelligence reports” about Page and Russians, and went on to recite verbatim several of the dossier’s main allegations. Isikoff attributed the information to a “well-placed Western intelligence source,” making it sound as if the dossier had come from someone in government, rather than an ex-spy and private gun-for-hire.

  The story served as the Clinton campaign’s early October surprise. Team Clinton jumped all over the report, highlighting the government investigation, never mind that the “intelligence” had been funded by its own camp. Jennifer Palmieri, the Clinton campaign communications director, took to TV to breathlessly highlight that “intelligence officials” were very worried about the Trump campaign. Other Clinton surrogates fanned out on social media to spread the allegations. The FBI, by accepting an opposition-research document from the Clinton campaign, provided that same campaign the opportunity to present Trump as in the FBI’s crosshairs.

  The Clinton camp got an additional political assist from a Democratic partisan, CIA Chief Brennan. Brennan by his own admission was deeply involved from the start in the Trump-Russia narrative. In May 2017 House testimony, Brennan bragged that he’d got the FBI wheels rolling. He explained that he’d “become aware of intelligence and information about contact between Russian officials and U.S. persons.” The CIA is strictly barred from investigating U.S. citizens, but Brennan explained that he made sure that “every information and bit of intelligence” was “shared with the [FBI].” This information, he said, “served as the basis for the FBI investigation.”

  The admission highlights that Comey and the FBI weren’t alone in their Trump harassment. Brennan early on began pushing the line that Russia was interfering in the election solely to aid Trump. His problem is that even his fellow intelligence heads wouldn’t buy it. Asked about that theory in July 2016, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper publicly refused to say who was responsible for the hack of the DNC or what had motivated it. The FBI also took the position that Russian cyberattacks were aimed at disrupting the political system in general. Yet other analysts noted that Russian efforts to undermine Clinton—who Putin undoubtedly assumed would become president—were not the same thing as “help” for Trump.

  Brennan nonetheless wanted his narrative out there, and so pulled an outrageous stunt. In late August, he “briefed” then–Senate minority leader Harry Reid, telling him that Putin was helping Trump, and that Trump advisers might be colluding with Russia. Within a few days, Reid had written a letter to Comey—which was immediately leaked to the press. “The evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign continues to mount,” he wrote. He laid out the Russians-are-helping-Trump theory. He also publicly divulged at least one of the allegations in the dossier, those about Page’s meetings in Moscow, and insisted the FBI use “every resource available to investigate this matter.” With one meeting, Brennan had spread the word to more Democrats and the public about the dossier and increased pressure on the FBI to act.

  * * *

  Not that the FBI needed much prodding. It was already using informants. It was also using national security letters, which are a secret type of subpoena that allows the feds to obtain phone records and documents. Reports suggest the Bureau was collecting all these records against Manafort, Page, Papadopoulos, and Trump adviser and former general Michael Flynn. In October, it went even further, filing an application with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for permission to electronically surveil Page.

  The federal government’s power to eavesdrop on American citizens is among its scariest, which is why it is governed by strict rules. Think about how freaked out average Americans are by tech companies invading their privacy. Now imagine the listener is Big Brother. The FISA court was created in 1978 and exists to approve or deny government applications to surveil individuals who are suspected of being agents of a foreign power. FISA warrants allow for far more sweeping collection of material than do normal criminal wiretaps. Which is why it is supposed to be tough to obtain a FISA warrant, especially on an American citizen. Unfortunately, the FISA court generally approves everything tossed to it. Remember the old joke that a good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich? Even an inept Justice Department official can get a FISA judge to grant a deeply flawed surveillance application. Unlike normal courts, the FISA court doesn’t have competing pleaders. The FBI and the Justice Department appear ex parte (without opponents) to make their case, a
nd in secret, and the justices depend entirely on their candor.

  Thanks to the public release of redacted versions of the Page applications, we now know what FBI “candor” looks like. More than half of the application’s sixty-six pages were devoted to technical matters and a history of Russian electoral interference. Of the some twenty-five pages that focused on Page, much of it details his dealings with Russians. The key part of the application was its evidence section, titled “Page’s Coordination with Russian Government Officials on 2016 U.S. Presidential Election Influence Activities.” This bit was heavily redacted, but was almost entirely dossier-related.

  The FBI’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide clearly states that “only documented and verified information may be used to support FBI applications” to the FISA court. Yet former FBI investigator Bill Priestap acknowledged in testimony that at the time of the FISA application, the FBI’s efforts to corroborate the dossier were in their “infancy,” and we know that even Mueller could never substantiate the lies. Nonetheless, the FBI’s application boldly declared in its opening pages to the court that “the target of this application” is “an agent of a foreign power” and went on to back that up with unverified accusations from the rival campaign.

  The FBI meanwhile deliberately hid from the court the truth of who had paid for the dossier. It explained that it obtained information from “Source #1,” who is clearly Steele. The report then contains a highly convoluted footnote that refers to “Source #1” and a “U.S.-based law firm” (Perkins Coie) as well as an “identified U.S. person” (Simpson) who was “likely” interested in discrediting “Candidate #1.” Got that? All this is followed by another footnote in which the FBI hastens to say that despite the motivations of the “identified U.S. person,” “Source #1” is “credible.”

  FBI supporters would later point out that FISA applications never contain names, and suggest all this coding and subterfuge was normal. Hardly. The application refers to “Candidate #1” (Trump) and “Political Party #1” (Republicans). The obvious and appropriate thing for the FBI to do was to make clear to the court that the information it was offering had been paid for by “Candidate #2” (Clinton) and “Political Party #2” (DNC). It did not. Baker, the FBI counsel, told Congress that the Page application was one of the few he ever personally reviewed, because it was so “sensitive” and “controversial.” The FBI knew exactly what it was doing in keeping the details from the court.

  But that wasn’t the end of the FBI’s deception. The Bureau was well aware of the Yahoo! News article in September that had quoted a “well-placed Western intelligence source,” exposed its probe, and made public the dossier allegations. Anyone with a brain would know that the source was Steele, and that he had broken an FBI cardinal rule by running to the press. It isn’t clear if the FBI failed to ask Steele about the story, or if Steele concealed his involvement from the FBI. Either way, there was plenty of reason for the Bureau to refrain from touting Steele’s “credibility” in its FISA application. Not only did it go out of its way to present Steele in the best light, but the FBI included the Yahoo! News story in its application as additional evidence of Page’s guilt—even though it came from the exact same source (Steele).

  The Page FISA warrant has dominated news coverage because of the dossier controversy, but it is unlikely Page was the only U.S citizen the FBI was monitoring on the Trump campaign. The media has reported that the Bureau also obtained FISA warrants on Manafort, monitoring him starting before the election and into 2017. Manafort was in regular contact with Trump during this period, raising the prospect that the FBI was listening in on a president-elect. The Bureau was also officially investigating Papadopoulos and Flynn. The latter was also in constant contact with Trump; if the FBI obtained a warrant on Flynn, it would have been privy to even more Trump conversations.

  * * *

  FBI directors are given ten-year terms. The theory is that this long tenure helps to inoculate this powerful post from political pressure. Comey exposed the flip side: FBI directors are, in fact, inoculated from accountability.

  Comey was ferociously disdainful of candidate Trump, one of the earliest manifestations of the Resistance. He was willing to believe the worst, and also willing to use his awesome powers to go after the Trump team. Puffed up on his own power, convinced he was saving the nation from a scourge, Comey flouted all the rules the FBI maintains to protect both its reputation and the citizenry.

  And so, under the cloak of secrecy, the FBI head and his inner circle ran the first ever counterintelligence investigation into a nominee for the presidency. Along the way they ignored basic procedures governing political sensitivities, surveillance, sources, and methods. Comey allied his Bureau with a rival campaign, turning the FBI into a vessel for political skullduggery. These actions alone were enough to destroy public trust in a vital U.S. institution. But Comey was only getting started.

  Chapter 4

  Setting Up a President

  The FBI’s anti-Trump campaign was primarily fueled by disdain and arrogance. But Comey and his team had one further thing pushing them to extremes: the belief that they’d never be caught.

  Remember, the bulk of the FBI’s rule-breaking—its failure with sources, its use of a counterintelligence investigation, its misuse of informants, its misinformation to the FISA court—happened at a time when every poll said Trump would lose the election decisively. Comey in TV appearances has acknowledged that the entire FBI top brass assumed Clinton would become president. “All of us were operating in a world where the polls were showing that Donald Trump had no chance,” Comey told ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos in April 2018.

  Practically, that meant the FBI leadership was operating in full belief that its shenanigans would remain secret. Comey’s decision to open a counterintelligence investigation—rather than a criminal one—allowed the Bureau to put the entire probe under a protective cone.

  Comey had meanwhile separately broken another rule by hiding his investigation from Congress. The FBI routinely briefs senior and intelligence committee members of the House and Senate about sensitive counterintelligence investigations. These briefings aren’t a matter of courtesy; they are necessary both for information-sharing and oversight. They inform the elected branch of security risks and threats from hostile actors as it goes about legislation. And they allow Congress to pass along to intelligence agencies the information it obtains via foreign contacts and tips. The briefings are also the means by which Congress ensures that the intelligence community isn’t abusing its authority under counterintelligence statutes. The more sensitive the investigation, the greater the obligation of the FBI to let Congress know. Comey instead testified that he deliberately kept his investigation secret from Congress on the grounds that it was simply too sensitive—an absurd argument.

  Meanwhile, the FBI’s decision to withhold from the FISA court the dirty details of the Clinton dossier meant that the other potential check on FBI power—the judicial branch—was also in the dark about key details. All this guaranteed that no one other than the incoming Clinton administration would ever know how the FBI had spied on the Trump team.

  Trump’s victory destroyed this scenario, bringing with it an alarming new FBI reality: Within a few months a Republican president would know all the gory details. That reality brought with it a panic and a high-stakes FBI and Obama administration strategy—to take down or disable a new president. Those actions further destroyed trust in the FBI, the Justice Department, and the intelligence community, even as they severely undermined the powers of the presidency in ways that could dog generations of chief executives to come.

  * * *

  The FBI leadership’s first reaction to the Trump win was to double down on its investigation. The FBI’s Russia investigation team ramped up for a second surveillance warrant against Page. It also broke more rules about sourcing. The FBI had finally fired Steele, after his press blabbing grew too brazen to ignore. Steele had given an
interview on October 31, 2016, to Mother Jones writer David Corn. Dismissed for having violated FBI source rules about the press, the FBI had no business dealing with Steele—and the Bureau knew it.

  Which is why the Trump-probe team instead turned to a cutout—Bruce Ohr. And Ohr remained in contact with Steele. Steele continued to dump his dirt with Ohr, and Ohr continued to funnel it to the FBI. From November 2016 through spring 2017, the FBI officially pumped Ohr for his Steele-Fusion info in at least a dozen interviews. Ohr also remained in contact with Glenn Simpson. At least Steele had once been an FBI source; Simpson was a political operator.

  The FBI also briefed members of the Obama administration about its work, enabling them to begin their own outrageous surveillance of incoming Trump administration players. The Department of Justice and the FBI have always been cagey about just how much the Obama White House knew about the Trump investigation prior to the election. Comey certainly briefed NSA principals in the spring about the FBI’s suspicions, and he has dropped other hints that the Obama team was getting updates.

  But there is no question the Obama White House was given all the ugly details after the election—as this is when they started snooping on the very same people the FBI was targeting. Our intelligence community routinely listens to the telephone conversations of foreign nationals, especially those with potential hostile intentions. The intelligence community writes up summaries. If the intelligence community is listening to a conversation between a foreign national and a U.S. citizen, it by law is required to “minimize” the identity of the American. This requirement exists to prevent the government from using these tools as a backdoor method of invading the privacy of U.S. citizens. Senior members of administrations nonetheless have the power to “unmask”—or demand to see the identity of—the Americans listed in the reports. This can be done only by high-ranking officials, who are supposed to provide a serious legal argument for the privacy intrusion. It is also meant to be exceptionally rare.